The present invention relates to an information recording and reproducing method and an information recording and reproducing apparatus using an information recording medium on which information can be recorded by applying an energy beam. In particular, the present invention relates to an information recording and reproducing method of providing the arrangement and structure of a sequence of recording marks in a sector with a degree of freedom and implementing a plurality of recording mark arrangement methods on substrates having the same format, and an information recording and reproducing apparatus for implementing the plurality of recording mark arrangement methods.
A recording medium called DVD-RAM (hereafter referred to as DVD-RAM) has a feature that it has a sector structure having a pre-pit ID, a land and a groove forming a recording track are wobbled, and a recording field has, besides the data field storing user data, a buffer and a guard preceding a data field, a VFO field, and a guard and a buffer following the data field. The buffers, guards, and VFO field have been introduced in keeping with the sector structurization and insurance of overwrite life.
On the other hand, on a recording medium called DVD-R (hereafter referred to as DVD-R), a groove forming a recording track is wobbled, and land pre-pits are arranged periodically on a land. From a wobbling signal of the groove and a land pre-pit detection signal, the period of wobbling is found with high precision and the timing at the time of recording is determined by referring to the period. The buffers, guards, and VFO field as in the DVD-RAM are not present.
Although both the DVD-RAM and the DVD-R are writable DVDs, they have entirely different substrate formats and physical formats. Because of a difference in use target value and a difference in possibility of rewriting, there is rationality in that different formats are used for the DVD-RAM and the DVD-R. However, the recording and reproducing apparatus needs to cope with different techniques for respective formats. There is inconvenience that in a recording and reproducing apparatus coping with only one of the formats a disk having the other of the formats cannot be utilized. When the drive copes with both formats, complication of the drive structure is caused.